616 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15. 



look so much like the Champion of England 

 that it would take a very keen and practiced 

 eye to tell the ditl'erence when they were in the 

 seed-bag; but when the gardener found about 

 half of his Stratagems were the Champion of 

 England, he realized how he had been swindled. 

 If he wanted his peas for table use, it did not 

 make so very much difference; but if he want- 

 ed to grow seed himself, so as to have the pure 

 genuine Stratagem, he must hand-pick and 

 sort out the Stratagems from the comparative- 

 ly cheap and common Champion. In this case, 

 as in the other, if the dealer could kill the vi- 

 tality of the Champion, then the gardener 

 would not know the difference unless he plant- 

 ed a certain number of seed, say 100, and then 

 counted the plants as they came up. 



Now, dear friends. I should be glad to say 

 that there is one seedsman in the United wStates 

 who furnishes seeds that are always true to 

 name, without any such doctoring and swin- 

 dling about any thing he sells; but I do not 

 know any such seedsman in the whole ivlde 

 world. There may be one, but I have not found 

 him. One might come pretty near it. If it were 

 possible for him to grow all the seeds himself. 

 We have for many years grown a few of our 

 own seeds, in order to know exactly what we 

 had; but when a seed business begins to assume 

 considerable proportions, it is a pretty hard 

 matter to do this. In fact, very few seeds can 

 be grown to the best advantage in any one lo- 

 cality. Still another thing. It requires years 

 of careful training to be able to grow seeds of 

 all kinds fully up to the desired standard. 

 Every little while some great seed grower 

 breaks up in business; and generally, before 

 doing so, he floods the country with setds more 

 or less doctored, so as to sell them cheaper. 

 We have been victimized twice in this way 

 since we have been selling garden seeds. You 

 will note that we usually mention in our cata- 

 log the special seeds that are of our own grow- 

 ing. These are certainly not doctored, and for 

 one I am most heartily in favor of making it a 

 criminal offense for any one to offer seed for 

 sale with the understanding that its vitality 

 has been killed, its sole value being to adulter- 

 ate and cheapen valuable and high-priced 

 seeds. Good for Australia! 



WHAT TO DO. 



You may remember I have written a book on 

 this very subject; but things have changed 

 somewhat since then. Only yesterday a man 

 went all over town with some nice Beauty of 

 Hebron potatoes, and finally sold them to me 

 for 20 cts. a bushel, because no one would give 

 any more. One of the clerks in the office said 

 they were offered only 13 cts. a bushel for their 

 crop of new oats.* You know how it is with 

 other things the farmers raise. Nice apples 

 are offered at a price which hardly pays for 

 picking them from the trees. I am not going 

 to try to tell you what the trouble is, for I do 

 not know. Some of the friends say it is silver; 

 some say it is the saloon; still others, that it is 

 over-production. It may be all of these things 

 together, and, of course, it behooves us, each 

 and every one, to do our part in righting the 

 wrong. 5lean while, what shall we do? This 

 thing of finding myself in debt, without visible 

 way toward paying the debts, has confronted 

 me a great many times in my life, and I remem- 

 ber at least a number of times when I stubborn- 

 ly set my teeth together and declared I would 



* Since the above was written I find our dealers 

 are paying: 20 cts. cash for a nice quality of new oat«. 

 Two reasons are g'iven— that for which only 13 cts. 

 was ofifered was crobably not first class in every 

 respect, and since then there has been an advance 

 in price. 



stop outgoes until things got in better shape. I 

 said I would take up with the first decent offer 

 for any thing I nad to sell; and when I was 

 tempted to pay out money I would take an in- 

 voice of my effects and see if I could not find 

 something among my traps that could be made 

 to answer, instead of buying the new things. 

 Sometimes it was hard woi'k; but sooner or 

 later after making this decision things began 

 to improve. By watching carefully for chances^ 

 I almost always found places where 1 could ac- 

 commodate somebody, and get my pay for it 

 too. 



Mrs. Root remarked at the breakfast table 

 that there was at least one commodity that 

 was not so very cheap— beefsteak. It is still a 

 very necessary article for at least one member 

 of our family; yet all the materials for produc- 

 ing beef at a low price are plentiful and cheap. 

 People have wants now just as they always did 

 — innumerable wants. For instance, "home- 

 helpers" are not plentiful, even when good 

 prices are offered. I mean by " home helpers " 

 somebody to help your wife to do the same kind 

 of work she does herself every day. Now, then, 

 I will tell you what I am going to do: If so 

 little is offered for what I produce that I can 

 not get out whole, I am not going to invest 

 either money or labor in any thing until I have 

 pretty good evidence that somebody will pay a 

 decent price for it. I am going to stop buying, 

 and try to be happy with the things I already 

 have. 1 can remember when my father and 

 mother lived in a log cabin in the woods. They 

 did not have money in those days— not even 

 "nickels " that are thrown about so freely just 

 now. They managed to produce, away back 

 there in the woods, almost all the necessaries 

 of life, and I do not know but they and their 

 children were about as happy as people wha 

 have all modern luxuries. Yes, they were cer- 

 tainly a good deal happier than some people 

 with all that modern conveniences and luxuries 

 can supply. 



SUB -IRRIGATION BY MEANS OF COMMON DRAIN- 

 TILE. 

 Friend Boot:— While visiting friends In the 

 drouth-stricken regions of Kansas last summer I 

 had my first chance to see a practical test of sub- 

 irrigation Mr. Linn, of Osborne, had a Sl-acre plat 

 sub-irrigated, with most wonderful results. It was- 

 all in vegetables, and such growth I never saw — 

 onions. SOU bushels per acre: immense cauliflowers, 

 mangels, cabbagts, tomatoes, etc. He told me that 

 he would get back first cost the first j'ear. As you 

 are interested in sub-irrigation I thought to send 

 you a very rough sketch of the plan. I think the- 

 plan of watering one plat more than another is orig- 

 inal with Mr. Linn— at least, so far as I know. 



A 





/I 



O' 



Bach line represents 3-inch tile laid 12 inches deep, 

 and lines of tile 10 feet apart. The round spot (O) is 

 a small tube, with a plug, so as to give more or less 

 water to the different plats, as some need more than 

 others. In this case the water supply was furnished 

 from a well and windmill. J. W. Margrave. 



Hiawatha, Kan., July 20 



The above arrangement will work all right, 

 without question; but it will take some manip- 

 ulation to open and close the holes by means of 

 plugs; but perhaps this will be the only way to 

 get the water where it is needed most and not 

 have any where it is not needed. I would sug- 

 gest that, if the tiles are laid only a foot deep,. 



